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This is because Congress passed a law requiring the patent office to be self-supporting. This also means they have a financial incentive to grant patents, which gives them the incentive to speed through patents for companies that apply for the most, like IBM, Apple, etc. I don’t know if they do that, but I do believe that what gets rewarded gets done.

Pretty much all of the pharmaceuticals are developed using NIH grants, which means taxpayers are footing the bill, at least part way. I think those companies should be given a choice, if they use government money, they have to license their patents to competitors - any competitor, and grant the US government a license that can be used to produce meds for indigent populations – or they can forego NIH grant money and foot the bill themselves.

I think there is a place for patents, but I don’t think patents should be allowed to block development. How can we do this? I think all patents must be licensable for a reasonable fee based on profits. That would mean no more monopolies, but it would guarantee that patent owners would get a fair return for their investment. It would mean competition between companies bringing products to market based on the patent, which would help keep prices down. Ultimately, it might increase the value and utility of patents, because products including the new technology would move into the marketplace more quickly and perhaps sell more broadly, generating revenues for the patent holder. Since non-profit production would be exempt, it would make it possible to produce patented medications for indigent populations at a reasonable cost.

The biggest problem with my idea is that Congress would have to pass a law and determine the “fair” percentage. It would be best if that task was done by an independent body not so easily influenced by the big corporations that would lose their ability to club small businesses with patent infringement suits.

I’m sure there are many other problems, but I think this would be a good place to start, rather than just disposing of patents altogether.

I believe it would make sense to eliminate the monopoly patents grant. Instead, perhaps a patent should only grant a fee to the patent holder for each product sold that incorporates the patented idea. Someone smarter than I should come up with a fair formula for computing said fee, maybe based on the profit and percentage of the product covered by the patent. That way,if it’s a nonprofit project, no harm no foul, but if it makes money, the patent holder gets a fair slice. Best of all, no one could say, “no you can'take make such and such.” No trolling.

It would be nice to add an article that goes into the image processing that is done in cameras today. The software corrects for imperfections in the placement of the lens or tilt in the imaging chip. It’s kind of remarkable how much the software improves the raw image data.

I worked for a major telecommunications company back when the internet was just starting. I overheard a discussion between some of the big muckety-mucks about a presentation we’d all just watched, where the presenter talked about the new technology of voice over IP. One of the execs first comment was “We have to get it outlawed, it will cut into our profits.” Quite a few of the execs felt the same way. They would have outlawed the whole internet, if it had been up to them, in order to protect high long distance rates.

Regulations aren’t necessarily evil. Without regulations, thousands of more lives would be lost in auto accidents every year. We wouldn’t be able to trust our food supply or implanted medical devices, if there were no regulations that helped insure proper testing is done and proper safety equipment is in place. On the other hand, there are out-dated regulations and ones that simply don’t work. All too often, regulations are written by some interested party. For instance, GTE wrote most of one major telecommunications bill.

The Internet is one of the great inventions. We need to keep it as open and accessible as possible. For once, we should work for the common good, rather than simply helping rich telecomms become even richer, without regard for the potential problems that will cause.

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